Google is offering a way for web users to opt out of being tracked around the web by its popular Google Analytics tool used by publishers to track traffic and trends on their websites.
Publishers like Wired.com insert a simple line of Google Analytics Javascript on their site and then can see on a dashboard which pages are popular and what search terms lead users to their site. But Google also gets much of that user information in aggregate, so it has a bird’s eye of the internet, thanks to all the sites reporting back to it. It knows more about a user’s activities across multiple sites than any individual site knows. It uses that data to improve its own services.
Google Analytics is now letting users opt out of having your information, including your IP address, sent to Google’s central servers if you install a browser plug-in for IE 7 or 8, Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox. Google Analytics program manager Amy Chang described the new tool as a way to “provide even more choice and transparency for both website owners and users.”
The new choice to opt out comes just a few days after Google gave users the ability to cloak their searches from some online snoops by searching using https://www.google.com.
via Google Offers Choice to Opt Out of Web Analytics | Threat Level | Wired.com.
